Friday Links: Read Poems And Respect Nature Edition
"Leaves shadow him on a wide road. He lives in a hollow. He has more than enough green." - Elizabeth Willis, "Thunder Road"
If Chicago actually has 12 seasons, we’re hopefully moving out of Third Winter and into The Pollening/Allergy Spring right now. Which is great! I took an extended walk on Thursday and it was wonderful! Now who wants to go birding?
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Calling A Wolf A Wolf by Kaveh Akbar: the absolutely relentless brilliance of this book is just astounding. Obviously the quitting drinking stuff is raw and honest and brutal but I found myself really loving the way Kaveh talks about strained relationships with God and selfish relationships with prayer (praying as the plane takes off, never as it lands)
Be Holding by Ross Gay: this was my second time reading this (see? We did a two-parter on The Line Break podcast). This time I read through it in one single sitting, letting the words and Ross’s unbroken flow completely wash over me, all with my cat in my lap. Not the most scholarly way to read the 90+ page poem, but an absolutely wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning.
Promises of Gold by José Olivarez: what a wonderfully assembled book. It’s long for a poetry manuscript—130ish pages—but constructed in eleven sections “meant to replicate waves,” as the excellent intro says. As such, images and themes recur and circle back on each other, united by the mission to write “a book of love poems for the homies,” maybe the noblest mission in poetry. I am definitely re-reading this soon.
Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg: had to get in one of the classics this month. Reading this, with its excellent portraits of the working class and bustling 1910s Chicago, made me wonder about how the old Maxwell Street Market must’ve felt. Then there was a poem simply entitled the n-word, and I stopped reading the book.
does Your House have Lions? by Sonia Sanchez: Most surprising book of this whole 30/30 challenge. I first read it in 2016 (?) and thought it was fine, but this time around found it extremely moving. A second (second!) inductee this month into the Lisa Jarnot Memorial Tier Of Poets I Don’t Mind Rhyming.
Turneresque by Elizabeth Willis: I adore this book. There’s a section of ekphrasis with Romantic painters (like J.M.W. Turner), a section of ekphrasis with B movies you’d find on Turner Classic Movies, a section of sonnets, and a long poem called “elegy.” This book is catnip to me.
This Nest, Swift Passerine by Dan Beachy-Quick: a 55-page long poem that meditates on nature while sampling found lines from Dorothy Wordsworth, John Keats, Wallace Stevens, and Henry David Thoreau (among others), the book is simply a beauty. A huge influence on current WIP.
LINKS!
Another Actually Cool Author got a big legacy magazine profile! Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, as Vulture will tell you, is the author of the excellent story collection Friday Black and the new novel Chain-Gang All-Stars. I haven’t gotten to the novel yet, but read Friday Black a few months ago and loved it. Man, between this and the Kelly Link profile, do I need to start paying attention to Vulture?
Piping Plovers are back at Montrose Beach! After Monty and Rose had their summer fling in 2019 (first Piping Plovers in Chicago since 1948!), the bird nerds are freaking out over the return of Imani. I am recently into bird appreciation—these things sneak up on you when you become a dad—but have not gone out to actually try to observe birds anywhere. May be time to go scout Montrose Beach (quietly, respectfully) for Imani.
There’s an oak tree that dates back to when “Chicago” was called “Shikaakwa” at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and it has reached the end of its natural lifespan. The tree will be removed Monday, so people are paying respects all weekend. Block Club reports the tree was across from the white-cheeked gibbon enclosure, which means I’ve definitely spent time around this tree because I love the Lincoln Park Zoo’s primate house. History is all around us, dudes, whether we know it or not.
CreatureFector will always get a link in this space if I see it. This time, Sabrina Imbler dives into the mystery of the Tully monster, “an animal without obvious ancestors or descendants.” Chicago will claim you, Tully monster, we are a home to those who need it and you lived in Illinois anyway. Though I cannot help but stan a creature without a country—did you know big cats are a ghost lineage?
New The Line Break podcast! This month, we’re reading Elizabeth Bishop and Mathias Svalina, talking the craftsmanship that goes into writing both received forms and surrealism, and debating which camp Hakeem Olajuwon falls into.
BONUS SIXTH LINK! In light of Wednesday’s layoffs talk, unionize your workplace:
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Chris
